Let's stop our museums going the way of T Rex
Tomorrow, I'm planning a visit to the Natural History Museum with my parents, my brother, his wife and their son. A family day out, just like the ones my brother and I used to have with our parents when we were children.
There was little money when we were growing up in Ireland in the 1980s and 'The Dead Zoo' as it is known to Dubliners was one of the free cultural institutions that we could enjoy.
It's still free in and still one of the most fascinating places I know. Packed with dinosaurs, tigers, hippos and birds, not to mention stuffed sharks (that rival any of Damien Hirst's), as well as skulls and bones -- over two million specimens in all -- it is perfect for parents of children with inquiring minds.
It's one of the few free things left in these straitened times and last week, it seemed like we might have to take advantage of these cultural privileges while we can as the Arts Minister Jimmy Deenihan said there were more cuts to come down the line.
The minister's comments came in the wake of the announcement by the director of the National Museum, Pat Wallace, that he will retire at the end of the month as part of the Government's controversial public service retirement scheme.
The scheme, the Government's way of cutting public service staff numbers, is available to everyone, hence the potentially disastrous exodus of senior, experienced staff. With long years of service, they stand to benefit the most from the pension scheme.
Minister Deenihan said he was sorry for the cuts that had to be made but all cultural institutions have taken a rap and, what's more, funding will be reduced even further over the next three years thanks to the troika.
Further cuts means a possibility of these services having to start charging an admission fee. In London, the National Gallery and the British Museum have free admission, with fees applied to visiting exhibitions, like here.
In Paris, it's a little different, with the national museums only offering free entry to the public on the first Sunday of every month. But the collections in museums such as the Louvre and the Musée d'Orsay are some of the best and most-visited in the world and at least they make an allowance for families to visit for free once a month.
The point of the arts has never been to make money. They're there to remind us of what we are capable of as a society, a marker of our culture. Wallace said to dismiss them because they don't earn money would be disastrous.
Our museums and galleries offer us a sense of national pride, something scarce on the ground at the moment.
Of course, none of this feels very urgent if you compare it with the strain on frontline services in the HSE, the senior garda positions that have not yet been filled or the number of experienced teachers retiring in the middle of the academic year.
But that is the danger. Given the choice, nobody would choose funding a museum over giving a family an Exceptional Needs Payment to cover the crippling cost of a child making his or her First Holy Communion.
In the list of priorities, the arts will always come way down the line but perhaps we should remember the benefits these free institutions offer. Keeping them free makes them affordable for everyone.
And in times like these, that is not to be underestimated.
Originally published in
